<div dir="ltr"><h1>The problem with pronoun policies<br></h1><div class="gmail-sidebar"><div id="gmail-newsletterSignup">
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<p>he University of Sussex Students’ Union made headlines this week when the <i>Daily Mail</i> got a hold of its <a href="https://www.sussexstudent.com/democracy/policies/gender-inclusive-language/" target="_blank">Gender Inclusive Language Policy</a>.
According to the policy, all societies, campaign materials and student
media outlets must use gender-neutral language, and all students must
state their preferred pronouns at the beginning of meetings. The SU
advises that no assumptions on gender should be made, and encourages the
use of ‘them’ and ‘they’ instead of ‘he’ and ‘she’ when addressing a
person whose gender identity has not been stated. </p>
<p>An SU officer told the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/sussex-university-gender-neutral-pronouns-transgender-lgbt-rights-brighton-sexuality-politics-a7505671.html" target="_blank"><i>Independent</i></a>
that the policy was introduced in a bid to ‘make the students’ union a
more inclusive and comfortable environment for trans and non-binary
students’. Many transgender activists argue that the enforcement of
these new rules is crucial to the health and mental wellbeing of trans
and non-binary students, linking so-called misgendering with suicide
rates within the transgender community.</p>
<p>But though they are presented as compassionate, these policies have
sinister implications. It is wrong to lay the blame for suicide in the
transgender community on non-trans people making perfectly rational
assumptions about people’s gender. When people ‘misgender’ a trans
person it is not ill-intentioned – it is based in accepted biological
fact. The issue at hand isn’t one of ‘bullying’, but of non-trans people
making ‘mistakes’, by, for example, addressing as male an individual
who looks male, and is biologically male, but who may not actually
identify as male. It’s a rational assumption, based on what we know and
understand. These policies effectively tell people that facts don’t
matter, and that people’s imagined fantasies and preferences must become
accepted reality. </p>
<p>What’s more, these policies promote the notion that transgender
people are too weak and vulnerable to be addressed incorrectly, even by
accident; that they need to be accommodated by everyone and every
institution in society, lest they are driven to kill themselves. Suicide
rates among certain groups should of course be taken seriously. But
they shouldn’t be used to blackmail people into accepting a view on
gender – or a particular person’s self-image – that they may not share.
It speaks to the narcissistic undertone of the trans movement: it
demands not simply rights, but recognition, even if that means
disregarding accepted scientific and social categories.</p>
<p>Worst of all, pronoun policies place restrictions on freedom of
speech – they allow the language of the majority to be dictated by the
perceived emotional needs of a tiny minority. In a truly liberal
society, no one should have control over how people express themselves.
Transgender people should be free to identify however they please, but
the rest of us should also be free to take a different view. Rather than
opening people up to issues within the transgender community, these
policies do quite the opposite: they shut down debate and further
alienate individuals from one another.</p>
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<p><b>Deniz Karaman</b> is a writer and student.</p><a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-problem-with-pronoun-policies/19175#.WHEQ6lw17Y0">http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-problem-with-pronoun-policies/19175#.WHEQ6lw17Y0</a><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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